This sequence of lectures describes how to understand the brain. Understanding in the physical sciences or understanding of a complex electronic system depends upon creation of hierarchies of description. In these hierarchies, the more detailed levels are fairly precise, but contain too much information for the human mind to follow more than a tiny fragment of a process at one time.

The higher levels are more approximate, but contain less information, and as a result a human mind can follow a complete process. The key requirement is that it is possible to map between different levels of description. Natural selection pressures have resulted in a brain architecture in which it is possible to create such a hierarchy of description, and the mapping between levels makes intuitively satisfying understanding possible

The lectures provide an overview of major higher cognitive phenomena including human consciousness. Some key aspects of brain anatomy, physiology and chemistry are then described. After discussing why natural selection pressures result in specific architectural forms in the brain, these forms are used to create hierarchies of description relating the higher cognitive phenomena to the brain anatomy, physiology and chemistry